Ethnographic investigations of issues of race in Scandinavian education research

Abstract

In this article we aim to present an overview of some of the ways in which issues of race and ethnicity are represented and researched in educational ethnography in Scandinavia. Several things are suggested. Amongst them is that educational ethnographers in Scandinavia rarely use the concept of race. The term (im)migrant(s) is used instead and the relationships in education between Scandinavians and (im)migrants and between educational results and (im)migrant culture and/or languages are often in focus. Integration has also been an issue. History may give an indication as to how this may have become so. Research on immigrants, immigration and integration has been promoted in national policies and these policies highlight language, culture and diversity but for historical and political reasons they often avoid ethnicity and ignore race and colour altogether. Moreover, when ethnicity is used it seems to be used more as an ontological marker than as an epistemological concept. This has repercussions we suggest for understanding the politics of race and ethnicity relations in relation to education.

Keywords:

• ethnicity
• race
• epistemology
• culture

Notes

1. Our epistemology view is sometimes referred to as perennialism. It holds that concepts such as race and ethnicity are (1) symbolic markers for different ways that people from different parts of the world have been incorporated into the global economy and (2) symbolic tools that are used in order to do knowledge-work in society under the influence of specific power-relations. Through their appropriation particular groups are able to manipulate resources such as wealth, power, territory or status as a basis for a hierarchical arrangement of individuals and groups on labour markets to restrict stigmatised populations to the lower levels of society and insulate the higher levels from competition from below.

2. The special situations of Norway and Finland need to be considered. Norway is not an EU country but it enjoys the same labour mobility patterns. Finland became an independent country less than 100 years ago after centuries of colonisation by first Sweden and then Russia and immediately endured civil war. Citizenship and national stability have been important aspects of schooling and research there, perhaps as a reaction to this.

3. Aretun's research is interesting. It is based on long-term fieldwork in a Muslim faith school in Sweden. Aretun points out that Muslim faith schools are often criticised for furthering segregation and social exclusion and undermining the fundamental values of society through religious propaganda, but that advocates of these schools maintain that in public schools the Muslim identity is eroded by ignorance, lack of understanding and even racism. However, despite implications of a potential racism, racial structures in society and racialised practices did not figure directly in the analysis.

4. The Finnish language is very different to the other Scandinavian countries, which means that our access to the breadth of research produced is reduced. Xenophobia, sexism and racism may be issues of central importance in Finnish work in Finnish. We are restricted to commenting on works in English.

5. This may apply generally. But there are some exceptions such as Rajander (2009). Rajander takes note of the material and political consequences of an ideology of whiteness as a discourse that legitimises and naturalises white privilege (Lappalainen 2003, 2004; Pedersen 2007). This kind of research gives us a lead on how white hegemony works as a differentiating system of advantage that benefits all Whites, regardless of their class or gender (Bonilla-Silva 2006) and it can unearth how those who are not part of the Scandinavian middle class, protestant temperament may have been silenced or relegated to victim status as groups who are acted upon by the forces and personalities of history rather than being their own actors within that history (Rajander 2009).